Familiarity from a Distance
by Dr Whatsit
Summary: Gillian Foster's head was as level as a well built concrete wall, which was why her first drink of the whiskey had yet to become a second. Post: Life is Priceless.


Author's note: I think we can agree that Life is Priceless (1X09) should have left off on a longer note. I decided to throw a wrench into the schematics and present this small piece...filled with some humor, a slightly intoxicated Lightman, and hopefully some strange sentences that will cause questions to arise.

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**Familiarity from a Distance  
**

The guilt rested, without bias, on both of their shoulders.

Reading people left little room for privacy—theirs, his—not when it was dancing with a flourish of facial ticks in front of his eyes. Gillian's was the worst, with Loker and Torres he could pry publicly without qualm. They lacked history and remained static characters in the Greek Comedy that was poorly disguised as a his educated life. Static characters were easy, despite the despairs they faced on their own. He knew their reactions to situations before they did—at least, when they weren't _trying_ to be spontaneous. She was dynamic, three dimensional and sharing stage time in his play. He read her like the open book she was, but to read her aloud was blasphemy and completely against destiny's copyright and license agreements.

Besides, there were currently a few pages missing and he would rather not jump to conclusions about the end of the story without all the facts there, nicely bound and in order.

They—the two of them, he and Foster—were possibly the most frustrating dynamic that he had ever had to study in his career.

Gillian, if she weren't one of the subjects under question, would allot him a generous amount of her knowledge and explain that they were experiencing a phase in their relationship where denial spurred a great many actions of deflection, cryptic messages guised as philosophy, and over generalization of one another's personalities. Which, she would also explain in great detail, meant they cared a great deal for the other but would rather let it hover about without being addressed until Torres finally learned psychology or Loker announced it to the entire office.

Cal's mouth watered unpleasantly and he chased the thought down with another sip of whiskey.

See, theirs was a case of familiarity from a distance. They'd discovered every character flaw, every beauty, every lie and secret and fear that there was to see between them and would continue to discover as each developed. And they said _nothing_ about it. Well, that wasn't quite true, he knew of Sophie and she knew of his mother, but they kept a great deal to themselves and it was absolutely pointless because they _knew it all anyway._

Why this was bothering him now? Cal wasn't quite sure. Perhaps the explosion, utter lack of sleep, the fact he smelled like the wrong end of a cow and a real drink had all jarred something loose throughout the day, or perhaps Alec's phone call and Gillian's anger when she saw that Cal had read her had spurred this current mode of introspection. That or she'd spiked the whiskey and it was really doing a number on his head. Which begged the question of how does one spike whiskey, but he was digressing...

It was apparent that he cared a great deal for Foster, he'd always let himself admit that much within the confines of his skull, but lately he'd been floundering in the privacy that screamed from the lines and movements of her face. She was sad—he'd seen sad before on the faces of his coworkers—but her sorrow meant more than the PA system in his mind cared to announce, and he'd seemed to be borrowing it as of late. At least, when he read it on her face, he didn't just see it, Cal _felt_ it...and it was bloody well frustrating.

And seriously...did she have to keep looking away from him as though it would keep him from seeing that she knew what his spurt of philosophy had really meant.

"They _will_ meet. The lies," he pressed. Too much whiskey—far too much whiskey and it made his tongue loose and skill to refrain much looser. He should bite his tongue before he developed a Loker-Complex.

Gillian Foster's head was as level as a well built concrete wall, which was why her first drink of the whiskey had yet to become a second. So, when her inexplicably sober eyes finally met his, Cal knew she wasn't going to misinterpret his meaning or fail to notice it had a meaning in the first place.

Whether she responded to it or not was an entirely different can of worms...

She smiled, eyes averted down at an angle, her thumbs tracing the pattern on her glass before their gaze locked again and she tilted her drink in a toast.

Wordlessly, Gillian raised the whiskey to her lips and sipped, her eyes sparkling with clearly unspoken words.

_His? Or __ours?_


End file.
